Combine harvester



May 7, 1940.

R. G. FLEMING COMBINE HARVESTER Filed July 27, 1936 May 7, 1940. R. G. FLEMING 1 COMBINE HARVESTER Filed July 27, 195e 2 sheets-sheet 2 Patented May 7, 1940 UNITED STATES PATENT ori-ics 1 Claim.

My invention relates to that class of combine harvesters known to the trade as baby combines and being characterized by cutting swaths of comparatively narrow width and characterized by being cheap and inexpensive in construction and capable of operation by the use of any ordinary farm tractor provided with a power take-o.

The objects of my invention are to-provide a machine of this character which may be operated eiiciently at comparatively high speed to thereby out and thresh a comparatively high acreage in a given time.

A further object is to provide a machine of this class which will operate at maximum elliciency on 'hillsides where one side of the harvester is elevated a substantial distance above the other side, and also which will operate at maximum eciencywhen traveling up or down hill.

A further object is to provide a machine of this class in which the material is processed from the time it is cut until the straw, stalks, trash, etc., are delivered from the machine in substantially straight lines through the machine with all operations carried on upon the full width of the swath, and whereby the various operations are carried out upon a relatively thin mass of the material, to thereby provide highly eiiicient separation. l

In the accompanying drawings Figure 1 shows a top or plan View of a machine embodying my invention. l

Figure 2 shows a side elevation of same.

Figure 3 shows a vertical longitudinal sectional view of same; and

Figure 4 shows a detail perspective View illustrating my improved means for removing materials from the swath boards and forcing them into the threshing mechanism.

o Referring to the accompanying drawings I have used the reference numeral I9 to indicate generally the machine frame mounted upon two supporting wheels' E l.

Pvotally mounted upon themain frame is the harvester body, indicated generally by the ref,

erence numeral l2, and this body is made capa ble of being tilted to any desired position by means of the lever i3 pivoted in the frame HJ and having a crank arm lli connected by a link` hic with the harvester frame, i2.

At the forward end of the main frame is a sickle bar i5 of ordinary construction, and at the ends of the sickle bar are the swath boards l the top surfaces of which incline upwardly and rearwardly.

(Cl. 13G-27) Extending from lthe sickle bar upwardly and rearwardly between the swath boards is the conveyor I'i'i At the forward end of this conveyor ll and immediately in the rear of the sickle I5 vI have provided guides I8 to engage the top 5' sickle bar is positioned close to the ground, and 10' the grain falls upon the conveyor, it will not tend to dribble downwardly in iront of the sickle.

At the rear of the conveyor il is the threshing mechanism which consists of a rotatable'brush i9 extended transversely of the machine and 1'5 contained within the brush casing 2.0. On the interior of the casing is a series of inwardly extended bafiles 2l forming between them pockets or compartments 22. This casing is open at its front to receive material to be threshed from 20 the conveyor il, and it has an opening at its bottom through which the material is discharged. The top of the brush moves rearwardly through this casing. vDuring a threshing operation the brush creates a considerable amount of wind, 25 and in some materials it creates a great amount of dust. For the purpose of preventing this wind and dust from passing out through the intake opening of the casing I have provided a deflector plate 23 located at the lower forward por- 30 tion of the brushand extended straight upwardly so that the current of wind created by the brush is thrown straight upwardly at the front of the brush against the inclined deflector plate 24 which extends upwardly and rearwardly and thus 35 returns the dust and wind back into the casing so that the wind does not interfere with the entrance of material'into the threshing mechanism, and' so that no dust willbe discharged out through the intake opening of the casing.

Beneath the threshing mechanism is the com,- bined retarding and screening device which com,- prises a sheet metal wall 25 extended downwardly from the forward side of the discharge opening from the threshing mechanism, and then 45 curved rearwardly and upwardly and provided with relatively large perforations 26 to perform a preliminary screening operation. Mounted within this wall and screen 25 and `26 is a retarder comprising a rotary shaft 2'! provided 50 with a hollow body 2S from which there pro jects radially a vseries of flexible retarder blades 29, and these blades in their 'movement touch or come close to the screen portion of the wall 25.

At the rear upper portion of the rotary retarder 55 l stripper 3Q.

is a rotary stripper with its forward portion moving downwardly adjacent the upwardly moving radial blades at the rear of the retarder. A space is provided at the upper rear portion of the retarder so that the wind and dust from the threshing mechanism will pass out through this space without carrying with it any substantial amount of the material being operated upon.

The said threshing mechanism, retarder member and stripper are all of substantially the same length, and the swath of` material being operated on goes through them along substantially straight lines from front to rear of the machine without at any point materially increasing the thickness of the material being operated on from that of the original swath as it was cut.

In practice the threshing mechanism is rotated at comparatively high speed in order to operate ehciently, and due to the fact that it creates a large amount oi wind it would normally tend to throw the threshed material violently to a considerable distance. With my improved retarding device, however, the material thus threshed immediately passes into the pockets of the retarding device formed by the radial blades 23 and the wall 25, This retarding device operates at relatively slow speed so that during operation one of the pockets 2S is substantially -filled with threshed material, including the straw, chaff, weeds, etc., and then this particular pocket moves downwardly across the wall 25 until it reaches the screen 26, at which point the major portion of the grain and small chai passes through the large open-` ings of the screen, and the straw, weeds and trash, etc., are discharged from the rear of the screen by the flexible blades. All or the wind which accompanies the material being threshed is deflected from the material in these pockets, and it passes upwardly and rearwardly over the By this means obviously the machine can be built of relatively short length and compact arrangement and greatly increased etilciency.

One of the major advantages of my improved retarder and screening device is, that when one side of the machine is elevated a substantial distance above the other, as when traveling on a hillside, the material within each of the pockets 23 does not tend to move substantially toward the lower side of the machine because the straw, chair, trash, etc., within the pocket substantially iills it,l to the extent at least that it prevents this side movement of the material within the pocket. Hence, the material contained in the entire width of the pocket is delivered to the large screen 26 and the material is operated on by the screen throughout its entire width.

Located beneath the screen 25 is an endless perforated conveyor screen 3l having slats 32 on its inner surface. These slats travel around the slotted discs 33 at both ends, by which means the conveyor screen is operated.

On the interior of the space betwen the upper l and lower portions of the conveyor screen I have provided a grain pan 3d extending iirst rearwardly and then upwardly and rearwardly, and delivering its grain into the conveyor chute 35 in which there is contained a screw conveyor (it, and then above the conveyor chute 35 the gra-in pan 3l extends upwardly and rearwardly. In operation the main portion of the grain passes through this perforated conveyor 3! before it reaches the screw conveyor 35, but if any or" such material should through the screen beyond the conveyor 3S, it would be returned by gravity to the conveyor trough by the grain pan 31.

In front of the retarding and screening mechanism is a fan casing 38 in which is contained a fan 39 having at its top an inlet opening lill, and the outlet opening ill extends rearwardly to the lower end of the fan casing and projects from one side of the machine frame to the other the full width of the swath being cut by the sickle. In the intake opening All) I have provided a damper lit. At the end of the damper is a lever 43 and an adjustable rod i4 connects such lever with a part of the main frame lil.

In operation with this damper, when the front end of the machine and the sickle are moved downwardly close to the ground the damper is opened to deliver' a relatively large blast of air from the fan, and when the front end of the machine is elevated the damper is moved toward closed position to deliver a relatively small amount of air blast to the space between the screens 2t and 3l. The function of this fan 39 is as follows:

During the operation of the machine substantially all of the grain and chaff and light materials pass through the screen 26, whereas the straw, trash, etc., are carried beyond the delivery end of the screen 26. This straw and chaff will normally fall by gravity upon the top of the perforated conveyor and will tend to flow through the openings of said conveyor. However, the chaff would normally fill a large proportion of said openings and thus prevent the grain from going through, With my improvement, and by creating a wind blast of suitable pressure delivered rearwardly directly beneath the screen 26 and during the passage of the material from the screen 26 to the screen 3l, substantially all of the chaff and lighter particles are blown rearwardly and outwardly over vthe screen 3l., so that only the grain and heavier particles fall upon the perforated conveyor 3l. Hence, "a maximum eiiiciency is attained for this screen 3l.

In this connection, the operation of the damper im is as follows: V/'hen the forward end of the machine is at its downward limit of movement the screen 3l is inclined upwardly at a relatively steep angle, and it requires a heavier blast of air to carry the chaff and straw upwardly and rearwardly over it, whereas, when the front o the machine is elevated the screen 3| is nearer to a horizontal position and, hence, a relatively less blast of air is suiicient to carry away the straw and chai, and a heavier air blast might carry grain with it over the rear of the conveyor 3|. With my improvement the amount of the air blast is proportioned automatically by the position of the cutter bar relative to the ground.

At the point where the material is being delivered into the threshing mechanism I have provided a means for stripping the material from the rear ends of the swath boards and compressing said material and forcing it into the threshing mechanism. This device comprises a slatted conveyor $5 having sprockets 46, the top portion of the conveyor being substantially horizontal and the lower portion of the conveyor being bowed downwardly. For the purpose of holding the lower portion of the conveyor in this position I have provided spring guides 47 at the opposite sides of the conveyor, curved downwardly and rearwardly in a direction causing a portion of the slatted conveyor to move downwardly and rearwardly across the upwardly and rearwardly inclined portion of the swath boards, and the ends of these slats move close to the inner surfaces of the swath boards.

In practice it frequently happens that large stalks, vines, weeds, etc., when cut offv by the sickle fall over the swath boards and are carried up by the conveyor and become lodged at the upper ends of the swath boards. By means of my improvement all such material is engaged by the slatted conveyor and stripped from the swath boards and compressed in a small enough area to enter the casing of the threshing mechanism.

For supporting the reel 48 I have provided two arms 49 pivoted to the frame at 50. The reel is mounted upon brackets I slidingly mounted on the arms 49, one offsaid brackets being adjustably fixed to one of the arms 49 by means of a pin 52 which may be placed in any of the slots 53. The reel is provided with a beveled gear 54 in mesh with a beveled gear 55, which latter gear is driven through a shaft Ehaving a telescopic' member 5l and universal joints 58. By this means the reel may be moved forwardly and rearwardly as desired and driven by the shaft 5S to any position of its adjustment. The arms 49 are yieldingly held in their elevated position by a spring 59. The reel is driven from the axle of the driving wheels l l through the sprocket gearing 60 and belt and pulley device 6I. The reel may also be adjusted upwardly and downwardly relative to the cutter by means of the crank 62 connected by the rod 63 with the lever 65.

The various threshing and screening portions of my harvester are driven from a shaft 65 intended to be connected with a power take-off from a tractor, and power from the shaft 65 is transmitted through various gearing mechanisms at the speed at which it is desired to drivefthe various parts. dinary gearing devices which it is believed unnecessary to here specifically describe.

I have embodied my invention in a full sized machine which I have successfully and efciently operated in crops of widely diversied character, and have had excellent results with such crops as soy beans, clover and grain stalks of unusually great length and also unusually short stalks.

I have also successfully operated my machine on hillsides and uphill and downhill, and have demonstrated that my machine will successfully and efciently thresh crops under all hillside conditions where an ordinary binder can be successfully operated. It is well known that the socalled combine harvesters heretofore used will not operate efficiently on hillsides and that where This mechanism consists of or a combine harvester must be employed for hillside cutting it has been a common expedient to provide such machines with an automatic leveler 'for the screening mechanism so that all of the grain or material being operated could not roll by gravity to one side of the screen and thereby excessively load that side and prevent eilicient separation. However, with my improvement I have found that my improved retarding and screening mechanism retains the full width and depth of the swath during its -passage through the machine so that on hillsides material from the retarder and screener will be vdelvcred to all portions of the screening conveyor 3l throughout the entire width of the swath cut, and when once delivered to all parts of this screen 3l .itwill be efficiently screened, even though there should be some tendency for the grain to roll laterally over the screen 3|.

Olne of the reasons why I am able to so eiciently effect the separation of the grain from the lchaff and straw after it is discharged from the retarding and screening mechanism is, that the fan 39 produces a blast of air of just the right force for blowing the light chaff and dust out` of the material passing through the screen ewithout blowing away the grains, and these lighter materials, such as chaff, are blown above the top of the screen conveyor 3l so that they will not become lodged in the perforations of said screen, and whereby all of the perforations of the screen are left open to receive the grains or seeds to be separated.

I,4 claim as my invention:

In a threshing machine, the combination with a threshing element of an open-topped casing polat sitioned to receive material from the threshing element and having a curved lower portion to receive and support said material, a shaft within said casing, a series of radially arranged blades xed to the shaft and extended substantially the full width of the casing and having their outer edges close to the casing at the bottom portion thereof to thereby form pockets into which the said material is delivered by the threshing mechanism and temporarily held by gravity, means for rotating said shaft for moving said material over the bottom of the casing to a point of discharge at the rear of the casing, a screening -device positioned to receive the material thus delivered from the pockets, and a rotary stripper device positioned to engage material on the outer edges of said blades when they have moved 

